


drabbles for clara

by danahscott



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M, Gen, but there's some past oswink, mainly doctor and clara friendship stuff, nothing is too overtly romantic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-22 04:16:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11372391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danahscott/pseuds/danahscott
Summary: what it says on the tin, drabbles for clara





	1. five minutes to midnight

“Keep your eyes shut!” The Doctor ordered Clara, guiding her along briskly. In the distance, she could hear cheering, and she felt a cool wind blowing across her face. She shivered. Wherever he was taking her was freezing. Clara crossed her arms, holding herself tightly. 

“Doctor, I can’t see.” 

“This’ll make up for it. Trust me.” Clara made a big show of sighing dramatically, but in all honestly, she was excited to see his surprise. “You can open your eyes now, Clara.” Slowly, Clara let her eyes adjust to the light. “We haven’t moved in space, but in about five minutes, we’ll be witnessing the turn of the millennia. Are you ready to see the year 3000?”

“You remembered!” Clara smiled, swinging her legs over the edge of the rooftop so her feet dangled off the side. “That was a whole different you I said that to.” 

“Well,” the Doctor started, easing himself over the edge too, “you said you wanted to go. Why not? I’ve seen it three times, it’s nothing special, really.” Clara raised an eyebrow, amused. “But it’s surely very important to you lot. Plus, the fireworks are really quite advanced at this point. You’ll see quite a show.” 

“Is that right?” Clara asked, closing her eyes and feeling the reds and blues pulse against her eyelids. “Well, Doctor, after all this time, you still manage to amaze me.”

“Happy new year, Clara Oswald.” 

“Happy new year, Doctor.”


	2. emptiness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> clara mourning danny/using the doctor as a way to run from grief

It was a sunny day, and that felt wrong to Clara. Every day had been so damn beautiful since Danny died, and it wasn’t fair. The sun shouldn’t shine unless he was there to see it. Now, being at the school, or walking to the coffee place they used to like, it just left her feeling numb. And then, out of nowhere, on Christmas Day, the Doctor had showed up and turned over her entire world again. Every Wednesday, he’d come and it would set her on fire, the travelling and exploring and adventures.

It had become a kind of escape all at once. And the Wednesdays had started to become Wednesdays and Fridays and Mondays too, until now she left on a whim, with little concern to what she was leaving behind. 

Clara ran a hand through her hair. It was shorter than she’d ever had it, but she had needed a change. She looked at her watch. Five minutes were up. Clara sighed, looking up at the sky, feeling restless again. She pulled out her phone.

“Doctor?” She said, smiling. “Can you come and get me? I’m in the mood for an adventure today.”


	3. why me?

Clara dreamed about it sometimes. The cliff and the fear and the hug that answered none of her questions. That was the only time she could remember. “You died,” it echoed back and forth in her mind. “Who are you?” That question replayed over and over and over again until it drove her mad. She had thought he’d traveled with her because he wanted her. 

Not like that, not in that way, though sometimes when she looked back at him and found he’d already been staring, she’d thought maybe… Except, in her dreams, she knew better. In her dreams, she knew why. He was staring because she was a mystery. That’s why he’d said, way back in the beginning, that’s why he’d called her the only mystery worth solving. Back then, it’d seemed nice, it had felt genuine. In her dreams, she questioned every little thing he’d ever said to her. 

Did he care about her at all? Or was she just some little puzzle that he’d drop back home as soon as he’d put the pieces together? She thought he’d wanted a friend. She’d thought he was lonely, and Clara supposed that he was, because there was pain behind his every action, the way he’d run willingly into a death match, not bothering to check behind him for anyone who might miss him when he’s gone. But she’d thought he had brought her along because maybe some companionship was what he had needed, or at least what he’d wanted.

In her dreams, she wondered whether she even mattered to him at all. And every morning after, she’d wake up, unsettled and disturbed, wondering why she couldn’t remember her dream, when she always remembered her dreams. And every time she shrugged it off, and grabbed her phone. She always dreamed it Tuesday nights, and it was Wednesday, at last.


	4. beginnings

Clara sat on the steps, jiggling her leg, restlessly. Any second now, he’d be here. It was funny to Clara, how she was itching to go somewhere new after a year and half of being content with one place. She thought she would be okay with it, grounding herself indefinitely. But now she realized the wanderlust was only brewing behind the surface, waiting for even the hint of adventure to pull it back out. 

And of course, a not insignificant part of Clara knew it was dumb, and probably dangerous, to fly away with a man she just met. But for whatever reason, she found herself inexplicably drawn to him. Clara didn’t believe in fate, but then, she hadn’t believed in time travel, either. And something inside her made her think that maybe she’d been hurtling in his direction all her life. 

This could go badly. This could go very, very badly. But Clara was sick of playing it safe. She’d been playing it safe for years. Now, for better or for worse, she was ready to start taking risks. 

Outside, Clara heard the wheezing of the TARDIS. Slowly, her lips stretched into a wide grin.


	5. our little secret

Clara wondered if the secret made it better. Sometimes it felt like the constant risk of the Doctor finding out she was lying to Danny, and Danny finding out she was lying to him kept her on her toes just enough to have some fun. Fun felt like the wrong word. It was the wrong word. But the lying kept her on her toes all the time, put her at the top of the game, through the stakes through the roof. That way, if she messed up and spilled to one of them, the carefully constructed lie she’d spent a month building would all come tumbling down.

She’d talk to the Doctor, look him right in the eye and tell him how glad she was that Danny had finally decided that this was okay, and try to dismiss the slight raise of his eyebrow. She’d kiss Danny warmly and tell him she was going to go shopping and that he shouldn’t wait up, and then immediately proceed to spend the next week kidnapped on an alien planet that she couldn’t pronounce the name of. 

It was a delicate balance, her secret life with the Doctor, and her lies about Danny. But Clara was desperate for thrill, desperate for something that would shake her up just enough so she can seize control again. If nothing else, the control Clara had was what kept the whole thing going, because while she had no power over everything else, this secret she could manage.


	6. denial

If she told herself enough times that she was fine, she started to believe it. Because, some days, the weight on her unbeating heart didn’t feel as heavy, and the countdown on her neck didn’t feel like a countdown to Gallifrey like it did most days. She could almost pretend that she was just another girl falling in love with every other man and woman she meets in time in space, convincing herself that she saw a wrinkle in the mirror, or felt a flicker of a heartbeat. 

And then she caught herself one day, not breathing. The Doctor had told her it was habit, now, since she was technically dead. About to die. Frozen. Forgotten. But sometimes, she felt irrevocably mortal. Scared in the line of fire, grabbing Ashildr’s hand when she thought they were both going to die, because the more she pushed it away, the more she denied it, the more she could pretend this was all some elaborate adventure. Maybe she had a dream crab on. Because the reality was, she was never going to see the Doctor again. She was never going to. And she was still finding ways to cope with that. She knew she was still in the denial stage, she knew she hadn’t felt it fully. So she lingered in the stage as long as she could, as long as possible. What else could she do?


	7. mistake

Clara pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, trying to rub away her vision, but when she opened her eyes again, the sight was still there. She had trusted him, and she had set him free. It was one of her first trips out of Earth, and now, now she’d already caused destruction and death. She held her breath when she felt the Doctor stand next to her. Everything was tense, she knew. It was all her fault. Clara had wanted so desperately to understand, because if his mother died, her mother died, too, and Clara knew what kinda twisted things that did to one’s mind. 

“I thought I understood. I thought he understood.”

“No. No, Clara. You know why you can’t understand him?” Clara shook her head, hesitantly meeting the Doctor’s eyes. “Because you’re good. And if it were the other way around, he wouldn’t have tried to help you, like you helped him.”

“But all those people. That’s my fault. I made a mistake and they had to pay for it.”

“No. It’s his fault. He manipulated you into helping them. It would have happened eventually.” She looked at him straight on, wanting to believe him. “Look, Clara. Look at all the people you saved, instead.”


	8. sky

i.

Clara never remembered the first time, except in dreams. And of course, it wasn’t really the first time, not at all. She could only just remember her echoes, and while the Doctor told her about the Victorian version of her, she couldn’t visualize anything he said actually happening. She could imagine it, though. Walking on a cloud, the miracle of her weight keeping her upright, the feeling of the stars sparkling all around her and the breathlessness of the Doctor, just around the corner. She had touched the stars that night. But she couldn’t remember. 

ii. 

Times like the second were the times she remembered why she loved the travelling. She forgot she was with Missy who had killed Danny, and tried to kill her, and could probably kill her any time she wanted to. She ignored the fact that she wasn’t walking on the stars, that the ship was only invisible, and twirled around, letting the stars blur into yellow light. She could feel them around her, reach out and hold them in her hands.

iii. 

The last time, she was planted firmly on the ground, the Doctor standing behind her, Ashildr long since gone and in the room next to her, and a raven flying her way. The universe had loved her, and she had loved it back, loved it so much it hurt, and now - and now she was done. It was over. She felt her pulse come rushing back, she felt her breath come naturally to her, and then finally, the raven hitting her directly in the stomach. It hurt - it hurt like hell, but Clara thought that maybe the universe was having it’s last go around with her. Breathing its last bit of life into her. She felt the stars spooling into her stomach and then, when she screamed, flying out of every cavity in her body. And when she looked up for the final time, she could feel them saying goodbye to her.

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on tumblr @kirayukimuras


End file.
